


Heart of Darkness

by realjane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, draco redemption, eventual H/G
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 00:36:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10478115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realjane/pseuds/realjane
Summary: Draco is banished to a realm beyond the one we know, ten years after the Great War. The horcrux of a dark wizard is the key to saving Hermione's least likely ally, but breaking the horcrux triggers her longest journey: to save the unsaveable man from a fate worse than death, without losing her soul. Can Hermione save Draco from the Underworld?(loosely based on the Hades/Persephone myth)(set 10 years post-war, AU where Hermione is an Auror and Draco has been in Azkaban)





	

Hermione held the Heart over the swirling dark waters and inched ever-closer as the men in white closed in around her.

“Miss Granger,” the tall one warned. “Don’t do anything foolish. We can just talk, like adults.”

“That's not what you told him before you banished him to another _realm!_ ” Hermione said.

“You of all people know the threat Draco Malfoy posed to wizard-kind,” the beardy one said.

She laughed dryly. “Draco was a pawn long ago, just like you.” She held her hand up as if to chuck the fruit deep into the heart of darkness. The two men held out their hands to stop her.

“Wait!” the tall one said.

“Why should I?” she said. “You’ve already gotten rid of your target. Why do you need this inconsequential fruit?”

“That is no plain fruit,” the beardy one said. “That’s Persephone’s Heart!”

“What will happen if I chuck it into the abyss?” she demanded.

“The seasons will _end_. The tides will cease. The world will stop turning.” The tall one looked thrilled to consider such a fate.

Hermione’s face fell. “That’s why you want it. You want to control the whole world.”

“Not us,” the beardy one said. “We want to preserve it, and bring Him back.”

“That’s what He wants you to think!” she said. “But He will kill you as soon as he has it, and then he will bend the world to his will. And nobody will be able to stop him!” She clutched the pomegranate close to her chest and at once felt her pulse align to the thrum of the forbidden fruit. She glanced up at the beardy one. “Where did he tell you to banish Draco?”

“That’s not for you to know--”

“Where did you send him!” She held the beating fruit above the swirling pool. “Tell me, or I’ll drop it.”

“The Underworld!” the tall one breathed. “He’s in the Underworld. Death is the least of his worries, now,” he snickered.

Hermione stared at the fruit at her hand in horror. Her childhood tormentor was now in the worst place a wizard could be--the one place where applied magic and spells could do nothing for even the most skilled of wizards. And, like it or not, she was the only person who knew it.

“He was put on trial,” she ground out. “They proved his innocence years ago!”

“You can never truly purge the teachings of your youth! He’s Lucius’ son now more than ever.”

The wind whipped wildly around Hermione’s face, blowing her hair in wispy tendrils. She held the pomegranate to her mouth and made a choice.

 _Diffindo,_ she thought. The fruit cracked in two. A deafening scream pierced the air and dissipated into the mist. The man would not return.

"Stupid girl!" the tall one cried. He lunged for her and she dodged him deftly. Hermione held the two halves of Persephone's Heart in triumph. And triumph, as it turns out, looked delectable.

“One seed from Persephone’s Heart will damn you, girl.” The tall one narrowed his eyes and pointed his wand at her chest. “Now that you’ve destroyed His last hope, we cannot spare you.”

Hermione hurled one half of the pomegranate into the swirling abyss of the Black Lake and the dark waters erupted in lava-like bubbles. She dug her fingers into the red seeds and her eyes flicked up to her aggressors. She ate a seed and the world went black.

She was going to find him.

 

___

 

_*Twelve Hours earlier*_

"We've had an urgent warning from Hogwarts," Harry gasped, as he, Hermione, Ron, and Neville strode towards the Ministry Floo.

"What's happened?" Hermione demanded.

"Someone broke through the wards, someone dark," Ron said. 

"Any leads?" Hermione asked.

"No, but they've got Draco Malfoy as their hostage," Harry said. "Last I heard he was being crucified on an invisible stake in the middle of the damned courtyard, or something."

Hermione's stomach lurched. "And McGonagall has done nothing?"

"On the contrary," Neville said. "She's sequestered all the students and dispatched Hogwarts' finest to the front lines. Only trouble is, nobody can get to Draco in order to free him. Every time someone tries to get close, they're disapparated to god-knows-where."

"He's been locked up for ten bloody years," Ron fumed. "Why would they use him?"

"Because," Hermione sighed. "Like it or not, he's a symbol of the rebellion. His family chose the side of good, in the long run."

"And yet, the Wizengamot still sent him to the clink," Ron grumbled.

Harry paused before the floo. "Listen. What's happening to Draco is horrible, but he is a diversion."

Hermione's face paled. "You think they're trying to find something in Hogwarts."

Harry sighed and nodded. "Let's hope we're not too late. All we can figure is this: whoever is behind the attack does not want to be known to the Ministry. It is my guess that we will be dealing with far worse witches and wizards than Voldemort's Death Eaters."

"What could be worse?" Neville shivered.

"Wizards who do not have allegiance to any one cause," Hermione said. "Wizards who want chaos."

Harry nodded. "Come on. Wands at the ready."

The four wizards arrived in the fireplace of the Great Hall to an eerie silence. No birds twittered outside the paned windows. No ghosts floated gingerly down the hallways. Even Peeves seemed to have desisted his havoc. The air was so still that a heavy breath felt deafening. Hermione surveyed the massive dining room; at the end of each house table, a stately chair was turned on its side. So, too, was the intricate headmaster's chair. It was a crude plan, but obvious. Overturn Hogwarts, overturn the wizarding world. The room began to darken as black smoke billowed out from beneath the long tables.

"A trap," Harry breathed. He pulled his cloak around his nose and held up his wand. "We must reach McGonagall's quarters, whatever it takes!" he shouted. The other three wizards nodded in agreement. Ron cast a silent spell and a bubble appeared around his head. He raced into the oncoming cloud. Neville held his wand up and screamed ' _finite incantatum_ '--but the smoke only grew larger, so he transfigured himself into a toad. He, too, disappeared into the smoke. Hermione glanced at Harry, but he was gone. She held up her wand.

" _Aparecium_!" she shouted. Through the smoke, far beyond the walls of the great hall--miles away, it seemed--a red light began to grow. Hermione could hardly believe her eyes; the tiny light grew so bright that she could just make out some sort of spherical object, surrounded by a deep red glow. Zap! A green bolt whizzed past her head. Hermione dropped to the ground, sending a purple bolt of disarmament back into the smokey void. A defeated groan sounded. Hermione leapt to her feet and bolted towards the glowing red orb--only to be knocked to the ground by a thump to her back. This time, the culprit was solid. A wizard in all-white trained their wand on her. She gasped for breath as the person leaned down close enough that she could make out deeply troubled features. The man was bearded with tortured blue eyes.

"Persephone's Heart is not for you!" the bearded man seethed. 

"Who's it for then?" she said. Her eyes flicked to the white figure behind the bearded man, a much taller, slender man.

"For the Worthy," the tall man said. 

"And Him," the bearded one said.

"What,  _him_?" Hermione indicated the tall man.

"Idiot!" the bearded man rolled his eyes. "We will protect it from the likes of you if it means killing you and your noble little friends."

"Oh, good," Hermione breathed. "For a moment there, I thought you were going to spare me." 

"Not for a moment," the bearded one said.

"Just out of curiosity, while I'm still alive," Hermione began. "What  _is_ it, exactly?"

"It is more than you could ever bargain with."

"So it's... a portkey?" Hermione asked.

"No--"

"It's so much more--"

"Shut UP!"

Hermione's eyes widened. "It's a horcrux, isn't it?"

"It's for us to  _protect_ ," the bearded one said, grabbing Hermione by the throat. "Come and meet your fellow doomed one." A swift knock on the head and Hermione was unconscious.

 

___

_*6 hours earlier*_

Hermione's eyes opened as slivers but no more. Her throat ached from a tightened grip, which would not ease. Nothing was holding her by the throat, and yet she was choking to death. She gasped. Panic began to rise in her chest and she realized her hands and feet were restrained, tied with rope to stakes in the ground. Her wand was gone. She glanced around for any sign of her captors. There were none, but there was someone beside her. Hermione strained to turn her head over her left shoulder. She couldn't see much, but what she could make out was a shock of white-blond hair.

Malfoy. With sunlight streaking across the courtyard, it was difficult to really look at him, except through squinted eyes, but there was no mistaking the curve of his strong chin.

She had studied that face ten years ago, as he sat in the courtroom and testified against his father for ritual abuse. He had been so broken down that any trace of the petulant young man was gone. He was a victim of a cruel father, who had slain his beloved mother shortly after Voldemort's defeat at Hogwarts. Draco had just been trying to survive. And the Wizengamot had thrown him into Azkaban, too. On a technicality. Rita Skeeter had confuded him into a tell-all to the Daily Prophet before his testimony, and the revelation of her crime was blamed on the poor child. Now, he was a prisoner of an unknown  _Him_ , and Hermione was right there with him.

"Draco," she rasped. The tension on her gullet grew ever-tighter. He made no indication of having heard her.

" _Malfoy_!" she tried again. " _Renervate!"_ His breath drew in sharply, his head bobbed slightly, and his eyes flicked towards her. Good. He was alive at least, though extremely weak. Hermione closed her eyes and opened her palms.  _Emancipare!_ she thought. Her chains exploded and the invisible vice around her neck released. She crumpled to the ground and gasped in deep, wracked breaths. She looked up at Draco, who was horribly bruised about the face from not just battery by the two assailants she had faced in the Great Hall, but ongoing, drawn out torture. She reached up to the chains holding his hands and again cast the explosive freeing spell.  _Bombarda!_

Draco collapsed. Hermione managed to grab his head before he hit the ground, though the sheer weight of him brought her to her knees. She cradled his head and tried to breathe. He brought one hand up to touch her arm. Hermione looked down at him; he was looking up at her through narrow slits. 

"Where'd you come from?" he whispered.

"Do you know who attacked you?" she asked, ignoring his weighted query, which bore all the inflection of an ex-classmate flummoxed to see her, and a conversation that would have to wait for a much later time. He closed his eyes and his head bent towards his chest, which she assumed meant that he did. "Someone I would know?" she asked. Again, he nodded just once.

"Death Eater?"

"And worse," he managed. The hand gripping her arm came to rest on his chest. Her heart leapt into her throat.

"Your father," she whispered. "That's why you're the hostage."

"Hermione, don't move!" Harry's voice called to her across the blindingly sunny courtyard. Hermione held up her hand over her eyes to see--and in between her and a frantic Harry loomed a dark beast, made of smoke and gnashing teeth. A smoke golem. Only master wizards could conjure such a beast. It growled at her, but Hermione just curled herself over Draco protectively. Then, the beast turned towards Harry.

"He's mine," Draco whispered. He waved his hand and the best disappeared like smoke from a pipe. Harry ran to them, followed closely by Headmistress McGonagall. The Headmistress knelt over Draco and placed her hand to his forehead.

"Come, come, you'll be all right," she said, though her signature voice wavered. Harry slipped Draco's arm around his shoulder and helped the poor man stand.

"Where's Ron and Neville?" Hermione asked.

"With the children, in the Chamber of Secrets," McGonagall said. "That's by far the safest place in the castle."

"We've been searching for you all day," Harry said with relief. "Six hours of panic, truly."

"I'm all right," Hermione said, though she was neither certain nor optimistic about her current state.

"I know what they're after, but it isn't hidden inside the castle," Draco rasped. "This is a diversion."

"Persephone's Heart," Hermione realized. The red orb she had seen through the smoke... Draco's smoke! "Draco! The smoke in the Great Hall--that was you, wasn't it?"

"It's all I could do in this state for a diversion," he coughed. Harry clapped him on the back. "But yes, that's it."

"Where is it?" McGonagall asked.

"The island.... on the black lake."

"Dumbledore's tomb?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Beneath it. Far beneath it in an impregnable box."

The stones of the great castle shook from a distant boom. All eyes turned to the outer walls, and just over the roof of the courtyard, yellow sparks burst into fantastic plumes.

"What does that mean?" Hermione wondered.

"They've found it," Draco said.

"Your father is out there, isn't he?" Hermione asked gently, reaching for his shoulder.

"He's not here," Draco said. "He's in a darker place. But now that they have the Heart, they'll free him." He swallowed hard. 

"First things first, we must get you all to safety," McGonagall said quickly.

Hermione shook her head and pressed her fingers to her temples. "It won't matter, now. We just have to stop them from using the Heart, whatever it does."

"Who's to say they haven't done it already?" Harry asked.

"We would know," Draco shuddered. "Imagine my smoke, but the whole sky filled with it. Blacking out the sun." He sighed. "There is only one option. We must stop them from reaching the skies."

"Do you know how to destroy it?" Harry asked.

"Two ways. Drown it in magical waters, or cut it in half and eat from the fruit. The first way would be safer. I cannot say what would happen to whomever chooses to eat it."

Hermione couldn't help herself; she laughed! Who would eat a horcrux? Unless it was lemon merangue pie, or some type of custard... but that would neither be diabolical enough for the likes of Lucius Malfoy, or safe enough for a wizard trying to preserve his destiny. What could it be?

"What are you laughing at?" Draco asked with a grimace.

"I'm sorry," Hermione covered her mouth with her hand. "What is Persephone's Heart, exactly?"

"There's only one thing that an item with such a name could be, Miss Granger!" Headmistress McGonagall said. 

"I must go and stop them," Draco said, pulling out of Harry's helpful grip and mustering his last bits of strength. Harry grabbed his arm. 

"We'll help you. Right, Hermione?"

She nodded. "Let's go. Headmistress, if we've succeeded, I'll send up blue sparks. If all is lost--"

"If all is lost, I imagine I'll be able to tell!" The Headmistress nodded curtly and turned on her heed, striding away towards the direction of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and her scared students. 

 

\---

_*5 hours earlier*_

The threesome apparated onto the island with little difficulty, though the shores were crawling with men in white robes. The guards' focus was on the sandy shoreline and blocking all water-bound intruders, so three wizards appearing in the center of the island, in a dusky clearing shadowed by massive trees, went unnoticed. The massive stone door to Dumbledore's Tomb was pushed aside. Harry made for the opening immediately but Draco stopped him.

"Wait!" he said. "They've got mine and Hermione's wands, and loads of men out here ready to strike. We shouldn't go in there until we have a plan."

"Who's to say they're not already making their way out of the tomb now?" Harry whispered.

"They may have gotten to the chest that holds the Heart, but it's impregnable without some sort of key. They have to open the chest before they can unleash the Heart."

"So one of us stays watch, and two of us go below," Hermione reasoned.

"Harry, you've got the wand, you'd best keep watch," Draco said. Harry agreed.

"Hermione, can you manage without your wand?" Draco asked.

"Mate," Harry chuckled. "Let that be the last time you ever question Hermione's power. You'd still be choking to death if it weren't for her wandless casting."

Draco's cheeks reddened. Hermione raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Her  _Bombarda_  had spoken for itself, she needn't trouble herself with an ignorant question. 

"If we don't come out in three hours, come in for us," Draco said.

" _Three hours?_ You could be skinned by rats in less than three hours, let alone these white-robed bastards!" Harry whispered.

"If what I've heard is correct, it could find us that long just to reach the inner chamber," Draco said. "Let alone get out again."

"We'll be fine," Hermione said, not believing it quite as ferociously as she said it. Harry held up his hands in defeat. Draco gestured for Hermione to enter the tomb and he followed close behind.

 

\---

_*1 hour earlier*_

Harry lay unconscious at the base of the stone stairway. Hermione's throat was once again in the clutches of danger, but this time it was the bearded man from before who held her neck in his hands. 

Draco's blood pooled around the open chest--his blood had been the key.

Hermione watched in horror as the tall man touched Draco on the forehead with the tip of his own wand--and he disappeared in a puff of black smoke.

 

\---

_*30 minutes earlier*_

Hermione scrambled up the stone steps, tears streaming down her face. She'd go back for Harry once the Heart was destroyed, but now she just had to make it to the lake. She tripped and fell hard into the stairs. Her arm cracked and white hot pain seared up her arm. Hermione gasped for breath and clutched the Heart to her chest. She pushed against the wall and made it to her feet. The stone door gave way under the full weight of her shove. All around her, wands and white robes gathered, ready to take her and the Heart.

" _Expelliarmus Totalem!"_ she screamed. The wands flew from their owners hands. Hermione cradled the Heart with her broken arm and leapt to catch the nearest wand with her good hand. She blasted her way through the crowding cronies and bolted for the shoreline. She had to drown the Heart. There was nothing more important, indeed there perhaps had never been anything more important than destroying the horcrux of Lucius Malfoy. Draco might be lost, but she couldn't let Hogwarts be taken by the sew-ers of chaos. Hermione panted for a solid breath. Beat by beat upon the sandy earth, Hermione carried the Heart of certain darkness to its doom.

**Author's Note:**

> This may in fact be a fever dream, but their romance feels epic to me and it only seemed right to give them an epic love adventure. Tell me if you're interested in more? Distract me from finishing My Insides Are Copper?
> 
> This was inspired by an absolutely heartbreaking comic about Persephone leaving Hades in the springtime.


End file.
